After nine months of cosmic chaos, NASA astronauts Butch Wilmore and Suni Williams are finally Earth-bound, blasting off Tuesday aboard a SpaceX capsule to end a mission that started as a quick Boeing test flight and morphed into a global saga. The duo waved goodbye to the International Space Station (ISS)—their orbiting home since June—aiming for a Florida splashdown by evening, weather willing.
What was supposed to be a week-long jaunt on Boeing’s shiny new Starliner crew capsule, launched June 5, turned into a 270-day odyssey when thruster glitches and leaks sidelined the spacecraft. NASA ditched Starliner, sending it back empty in September, and tapped SpaceX to rescue the stranded test pilots. More delays—thanks to SpaceX capsule hiccups—pushed their return from February to March. Sunday’s arrival of a relief crew finally greenlit their exit, with NASA dodging a dicey weather forecast later this week.
“We’ll miss you, but safe travels home,” NASA’s Anne McClain radioed as the capsule undocked 260 miles above the Pacific, carrying Wilmore, Williams, and two others—Nick Hague and Russia’s Alexander Gorbunov—who’d flown up last fall with spare seats for the Starliner castaways.
The saga gripped the world, redefining “stuck at work.” No strangers to space, Wilmore and Williams rolled with the punches, morphing from visitors to vital ISS crew. They tackled experiments, patched gear, and logged spacewalks—Williams racking up a record 62 hours across nine career outings, the most ever for a woman. She even commanded the station from September until early March.
The plot thickened in January when President Donald Trump leaned on SpaceX’s Elon Musk to hustle them home, pinning the delay on Biden-era dawdling. SpaceX swapped a still-in-the-works capsule for a seasoned one, shaving weeks off the wait. Through it all, the Navy vets kept cool, shrugging off the drama in orbital Q&As and backing NASA’s calls.
Hired post-shuttle era, SpaceX and Boeing were NASA’s duo to ferry astronauts to the ISS until its 2030 swan dive into the atmosphere. With the station’s 30-plus-year run nearing its end, private outfits are next in line as NASA eyes the moon and Mars. For Wilmore, 62, and Williams, 59—both retired captains—the extended gig echoed military deployments. Still, it stung: Wilmore missed his daughter’s senior year, and Williams leaned on space Skype with her mom. Their real hug-fest awaits in Houston, post-splashdown.